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Is Camp David Cheney's Siberia? When President Bush and the rest of America's elites mustered on Friday in the National Cathedral for the service of prayer and remembrance, vice president Dick Cheney was nowhere to be seen. The official reason given for this conspicuous absence of the man many believe has been running the country: the Secret Service and FBI fear further terrorist attacks, and insist that at no time can the President and Vice President be in the same place, lest a single terrorist blow would decapitate America's leaders and leave the nation to be led by Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. One very highly placed denizen of the Clinton White House is giving friends a rather different reason why Cheney is sequestered far from the press cameras at Camp David. It seems that President Bush's widely ridiculed journey from Sarasota, Florida, through Barksdale AFB outside Shreveport, Louisiana, to a Strategic Air Command bunker outside Omaha, Nebraska, took place at the urging on none other than vice president Cheney. It was the vice president, on this account, who insisted that Bush not return directly to Washington, on grounds that the journey was too fraught with danger. Bush finally limped into Washington late on Tuesday, with the vast, distraught national audience noting the contrast between Mayor Rudy Giuliani's sterling conduct in New York and the prudent invisibility of the commander in chief. Cheney, it seems, decided against making a public appearance on Tuesday, fearing that this would seem too close to a vice presidential coup d'etat. Memories are still vivid in Washington of the terminal blow Secretary of State Al Haig struck against his own career when, in the immediate aftermath of the assassination bid on Ronald Reagan, he strode to the White House pressroom announced to the world, "I'm in control here." As Wednesday dawned a continued poor showing by Bush would have further savaged his credibility as a leader, particularly if Cheney seemed to be the man issuing the orders. On Wednesday Bush's inner circle rushed to repair the huge political damage caused by Bush's strange itinerary the previous day. Bush hatchetman Karl Rove leaked a preposterous story to the ever credulous William Safire at the New York Times that a Muslim terrorist mole in the White House had leaked targeting data and that it would have been madness to let Bush enter Washington air space. Bush was given a stronger script to read to his cabinet. Even then, Cheney was nowhere to be seen. He had already been packed off to exile in the Camp David dacha, told to keep his head down and his mouth shut. =================================== CounterPunch Vindicated! We reported Friday on this site the exile of vice president Dick Cheney to Camp David. The White House line is that the threat of further terrorist assaults demand that the President and Vice President never been in same building. We cited a different interpretation: that the White House decided that Cheney's commanding presence was undercutting Bush's already frail stature as the Commander in Chief. Confirmation of our view came on Saturday with official White House pictures of Bush and Cheney sitting on the same couch in Camp. Or is the assumption of the Secret Service that Muslim kamikaze terrorists take the weekend off? |
